Caltrain comes through and cleans up site in the Bayview...again

Two months ago, my friend Tony "The Green Goatee" joined me in getting onto Caltrain's case about a problem that I'd been calling them about for the past two years (at 1-800-660-4287).  The obvious safety problem was being exacerbated by a hole in Caltrain's fence at the Oakdale Overhead that gave access to anyone to the tracks below.  It was an obvious safety hazard, with the hole at sidewalk level big enough for a child or pet to easily slip through.  Homeless people used this hole to access the area below and use it as their own.  Their trash had built up to disgusting levels inside the fence on Caltrain's property, graffiti was awful and was making its way onto the historic tunnel opening, and bags of human waste were beginning to show up on the street level above the tracks. 

I'm happy to report that Caltrain came through this week, whether because of Tony's involvement in writing the right person, or because it had finally come up on their schedule of repairs to do something.  The hole is repaired, some of the trash is cleaned up, most of the graffiti is gone, but the smell of human waste remains.  Even with limited funds, and despite it taking two years of complaining, I still feel like Caltrain has become more responsive to our community's requests for maintenance on their property.  The trash-dumping site on Quint Ave below their tracks was cleaned up earlier this year after repeated complaints, and homeless encampments along Caltrain's tracks near the Produce Market were also cleaned up with a coordinated effort from SFPD.

Junk car on Caltrain property, 2002

Palou at Dunshee, 2002

Frustrated with the amount of time it often takes to get things like this repaired or cleaned up, a group of us at the Quesada Gardens Initiative have been working with Caltrain for the past two years to try to gain access to the part of their property at street level, closest to Palou Ave and Dunshee St, so that we could get in there and clean it up ourselves.  We have insurance, signed agreements, and have agreed to make upgrades to Caltrain's own fence between the upper lot to the tracks below.  The lot used to be a dumping site, with decaying cars and trash littering both sides of the fence.   Today, thanks to work we've already put into cleaning things up, dumping is down easily by 95%, and neighbors are getting a chance to meet and know one another instead of being afraid to go near the place.

Palou Garden Site

It's a testament to how things often work.  If you want to make something worse, just go ahead, rip a hole in a fence, and do whatever you like - you're unlikely to get caught, and it'll take years before anything happens to make it better again.  However, if you want to make something better, you have to figure out who the right people are to talk to, get everything in writing, get permission, and then follow a set of tight restrictions on what you can do, because heaven forbid you do something that would be unattractive.

We're looking forward to continued involvement with Caltrain at this site.  Quesada Gardens Initiative has created a first of its kind agreement with the agency to gain access to their property for community use.  Perhaps other groups out there can use our model and do the same!  In two weeks, QGI will be partnering with neighbors and other local groups for a first-time cleanup of the main part of the property that it's taken us years to legally gain access to.  We're very excited, and I'll obviously be posting more information about it here.  We'd love it if you could spend a few hours with us, October 15, 10AM-1PM, at the corner of Dunshee St and Palou Ave.